The Warcaster Talent
by chottersung
Summary: A young Khadoran warcaster still in Druzhina training flees the empire for mysterious reasons and is hunted by her peer Andrei Malakov. [Warmachine, Iron Kingdoms]


Blood on pale stone. _A sacrifice to the Old Faith_, she thought. _Mom would see it as a sign. Grandmother as a different kind of sign._ She could feel the sting of her forearm as she pushed off the rough facade of the church, and glanced down briefly at an arm covered in red. She'd been grazed. Bullets struck the limestone behind her as she ran.

_POK_

_POK_

_POK_

_POK!_

She disappeared into an alley, shrouded by the night and a breathlessly whispered spell.

/\

The young woman walked among an outer district of the White City. Her hair was the dark color of hardened bark in winter, cut to match the too-short fashion of young nobles. Her brown eyes focused in the distance, on a gate in the mighty wall surrounding Ohk. People in the bazaar tried speaking with her, yelling at her, getting in her way. She pushed past them, wordless. Her fur-trimmed cloak swept across her front, covering her left arm. A dark stain was beginning to bloom there, through the thick of the grey fabric.  
There were guards at the gate. As she approached, she could feel in her mind the tickle of a mechanikal brain somewhere nearby. The Talent, people called it. The Ability. Mentally reaching out, she looked through the eyes of the thing, felt its metal joints and hulking frame. It was hauling an enormous heavy crate on its back, somewhere thirty or so feet behind her. A couple tons, that cargo, give or take. Probably parts on their way to the shipyard.

She kept her eyes focused ahead.

Strode forward with purpose.

Saw the guards in front of her yell and rush toward her-no, around her-as she directed the thing's brain to heft the crate off its back and hurl it into the nearest building, demolishing part of a brick wall. Panicked screams crashed across the bazaar in a wave and the guards issued clipped, harsh commands as they tried to control the situation. This all registered faintly to the young woman as she kept moving.

She looked straight up before she entering the short tunnel just past the gate. The line of an alabaster wall forty feet high bisected her vision before the dirty grey of the tunnel clouded it over. The people needed to feel safe. But she was leaving this city, one step at a time, because she knew it could never be her job to protect their feelings.

* * *

"Lenitchka, Lenitchka," the old woman cooed over the child in her arms. Her broad smile and lilting tones failed to impress the girl, who searched the old woman's face with a serious expression. Then she squirmed. Reached a hand toward the ground. "Ah, Lena, you don't fit in my palm anymore," said the old woman as she set Lena down. The girl toddled off to a corner of the one room cabin, bare feet thudding on wooden slats.

"Always to there you go." The old woman plucked darning needles and a pair of rough pants off a rocking chair and sat down. She set to work on a hole in the knee, mumbling to herself. "You don't fit in anyone's palm, do you, Lenka?"  
"Wa ba," said Lena. Her hands were on the edges of the low slate table that her grandmother used as a shrine. She pumped her legs a few times in a kind of dance as she looked at what was set before her. Bones, teeth, seashells. Bits of fur and skin, a piece of chalk, and runes drawn in white where there was space. A menofix hung on the wall above the table, the eye at the top of its cross staring at her. A confusing, fascinating tableau—about the same as everything else in the world to one her age.

Lena looked at her grandmother, smiling. The old woman looked up over her needles, and mirrored the smile. "Go ahead, little thunder"—as soon as permission was given, Lena's chubby arm swept across the stone, bones scattering, teeth clicking across the floor like dice. She squealed and giggled and stomped her legs in rhythm.

The old woman stood up, a smirk on her face. "The wurm is wild, and would not have its places any other way. Wild and messy, like us. Best we put it away and remake it another day, yes? Your mother will be here soon and we know how she views this." Lena turned her face toward her grandmother's, bones in her hands like sticks and a solemn look under her dark crown of hair.

/\

The day began nearly frosty on the Vilkhan Bluffs despite the fact that spring had arrived some time ago, but before noon it had warmed enough that Yakov Ivanov had to take off his sheepswool overshirt. Setting it on the firewood piled neatly on the side of the house, he looked out over the tundra that spread away from his small village. Near the horizon he could see the hills where he and the other local men spent their days mining under the thumb of some unknown kayazy. The hour was just right for him to catch small moving swatches of brownish; men changing the shift.

Yakov would be out there, but the contractor was supposed to arrive any day now, and he had to be here for that. She was an opportunist, and if not swiftly put to work she would move on. She had done so in the past, which is why the village appointed the only man would could string together sentences in both Cygnaran and Llaelese to wait for her. Yakov sighed. He didn't dislike the responsibility—in fact it gave him a sense of self and place to be considered a leader in his community—but he felt unease at dealing with someone who had come to live in Khador from Cygnar by way of Llael. She was not a Kossite, not a Khard. Not even an Umbrean. A spoiled pink Midlunder, far from home. Still, her Khadoran was better than passing, and she was respectful. Sometimes.

And, well. She helped the village turn its lumber into coins that sat heavy on the palm. To Yakov, that feeling of weight was the same as safety, and bought peace for his family.

"What is this?" came the voice that made him think _home_ from behind. "You throw your nice wool on the woodpile? Men, they are so sloppy, and always get away with it." Yakov turned to see his wife with his overshirt slung over one arm, their child held in her other. He shot out a laugh. "It is not so for you and me, Lena." His wife set the girl down in the grass, and Lena looked up at her mother. "Always we must have everything in order." She gestured at the line of her long dark braid that was drawn straight over her right shoulder. "Always we must be white as snow." She curtsied to Lena with her faded lemon dress. "To please men like your father." Lena was ripping up handfuls of grass and showing them to her mother. "The trick," she said, walking over to Yakov with an appraising look in her eye and putting her hands on his shoulders, "is to find one worth pleasing." She and Yakov broke into smiles and kissed.

"Is that the secret then, Luda?" said Yakov.

"It is one," she replied, a conspiratorial look on her face. "I have many more."  
"Ooh ah, bah," said Lena, reaching her hand to the sky above the forest behind the village. "Soke!" Black smoke curled above the treetops.  
"Finally, she is here!" said Yakov. "Do you want to go see, Lenitchka?"  
"Yakov, no!" said Ludmila. "You never know what can happen around those things." She put her hands on his face and looked him pointedly in the eyes. "Don't take her. What use can this have for a child not yet three?"

Yakov took his wife's hands in his own and kissed them. "The use?" he said. "Who can know? At the least it is good for children," he stopped, thinking about what he was saying. "It is good for _all_ of us to see new things. There is no danger. There will not be any working, not any real work. We are just negotiating this year's contract. There will be no swinging axes or falling trees, I promise you." Ludmila sighed, and took her hands from her husband. She put them in the pockets of her housedress, automatically worrying the menofix she had embroidered on the inside of the right pocket.

"Creator preserve you," she said. Her eyebrow raised. "And you preserve our daughter. It is time I went to your mother's. She is helping me to can ulk meat this afternoon." When Ludmila turned and began to walk toward the path leading away from the house, Lena ran up behind and latched onto her leg.  
"A ma ma!" The promise of tears flashed in her eyes. Ludmila crouched and stroked her daughter's hair, a faint smile on her face.  
"What did I say about pleasing them, Yelena? There is nothing for it. Go on, now, to your pa." She kissed Lena on the cheek. "But don't let him influence you too much." Ludmila walked down the path of hard earth and her daughter stood there, watching her go.

/\

Lena's outstretched hand brushed the needles from a low-hanging branch. "Oww!" Yakov, carrying her on his bare shoulders, tightened his grip around her ankles.

"Did a tree surprise you?" he asked.

"I yokay."

"Sometimes it is good to feel the sting of the world around you." Yakov thumped his chest, letting go of Lena's chubby right foot for a second, and the brief sensation of being unmoored made her howl and channel her glee through her arms, losing control. They repeatedly drummed Yakov on the top of his head, which was, luckily for him, mostly insulated by a carpet of curls. "Oww!" and then, "I yokay," he laughed.

As they walked along, the path went from sparsely surrounded by thin trees, long and knobbly like adolescents, to a narrow cut in the middle of a thick sea of pine. The forest, if it could be called that, was arrayed almost in a grid on either side of the path. The farther they walked, the older and bigger the trees. The shade grew deeper, and a cool wind blew across the path, coming from their left. The trees sighed as the air slipped along the weird contours of the creature that was Lena-on-Yakov.

Lena's tiny bulb of a nose reddened instantly. Yakov gave an exaggerated shiver. "That is the kiss of Khador. Our mother knows best how to make us strong, and you will learn to take joy in it." Wading further into shadow, they lost sight of the boiler smoke that had started their journey. Yakov continued on. "Why we must always meet here is a thing I don't understand," he muttered. "The wood is the same every time, and don't we always look over the papers over a meal at home? People will as they will, Lenitchka, and that is all there is to know."

As they rounded the last curve and saw the woman at the very edge of the forest, flanked by trees with nothing but golden fields behind her, the sun seemed to lock in place directly overhead. Yakov's skin immediately thawed as serrated blades of light cut through branches and criscrossed his body. The woman hailed him with an arm, then turned back to the forest, looking the trees up and down.

Yakov frowned. She was wearing an absolutely ridiculous getup that may have had a place in Caspia or Merywyn, but not here. White pants that had surely been pristine before the road was kicked up onto them were tucked just below the knees into soft leather boots. The lapels of her burgundy jacket drew a line from chin to hips and then the jacket swept behind her and down to gather right around the backsides of her knees. Under this she wore a white waistcoat with brass buttons. Altogether, a fashion popular in Llael. Her hair was so short Yakov could only see a few strands poking out from under the bill of her mud-colored kepi; the hair was strawberry where the sun touched it, brown where it did not.

The woman continued staring off into the trees as he approached. When he was close enough that they could speak, he stopped, listening. The forest heaved and rustled around them, a green ocean. The woman turned her head, smiling. "Yakov," she said. "It's good to see you again." She was speaking Khadoran. Her eyes flickered to Lena, who was reaching her arms out to the dark forest on her right. "But I thought I told you last time that I will not take payment in children, not even hardy Khadoran ones."

"I see you bring me pearls of humor, Emma." Yakov tried to smile but found himself straining. He lifted Lena off his shoulders and set her down. "She saw the smoke, so I brought her to meet the equipment."

"Please don't call Marcel equipment. Though he wouldn't care, I find it rude."

"Mohr-sell," repeated Yakov, his accent finding scant purchase on the unfamiliar name.

"Sell," said Lena.  
"Thank you," Emma said, "and I appreciate you meeting me out here. I like to get a sense of the year's growth, start thinking about how to approach the job. Contracts come after." Yakov started to say something, and Emma interrupted. "I know you want to make this snappy. Don't worry, I've had enough time. We'll start on the left here," she gestured toward the grid of trees, "and pile the logs near the trail, which seems to be the cleanest route back to your village from this far out."

Lena took a few steps toward the forest, then looked back at her father. He smiled, then she smiled and took a few more steps, touching her hand to the bark of a tree she couldn't begin to see around. "Sounds simple enough," said Yakov. "My wife will be making dinner. Bring Mohr-sell here, and we will break bread and discuss."

Emma barked a laugh. "I can't just bring him. Do you think I would be doing this work if I could directly connect to a steamjack?" She inspected something invisible on her waistcoat and brushed it off, speaking just above a whisper: "Not a chance." Collecting herself with a deep breath, Emma spoke up. "Marcel's getting the lay of the land. Listen, you can hear him."

From Yakov's right came the sound of metal on metal, less a screech and more of a rhythmic grind, a punching one-two grunt, followed by twigs snapping and a sound like a large stone hitting the earth. "You can call him if you want to. He understands his name now."

"Mohr-SELL!" Yakov belted out. His voice was drowned in the leaves. The sound in the forest stopped for a moment, then continued.

Emma's lips twisted, trying not to reveal her pride. "I taught him," she said.

"Lenitchka, come here." Lena had shuffled around the enormous tree, and was on the other side where Yakov couldn't see her. Presently she popped her head around an edge, and came running at her father, giggling. He swept her up and in a clean motion planted her on his shoulders. "Call with me, Lenitchka. Mohr-SELL!" he bellowed again.

Lena took a deep breath, hissing out what she could. "Sssssell!" Her voice chirped out like a sparrow's. The grinding and thumping became louder.

Peering into the wood, they could see first metal, then a drab olive green shape emerge from the army of brown trunks. Yakov couldn't make it out clearly until it broke through the shade into the bright noon of the path, but he had seen it before and knew what he was looking at.

Lena hadn't, and didn't.

_skrr-WUMP._

_skrr-WUMP._

A metal monster stood in front of her, and even on her dad's shoulders she had to look up to see the top of it. She expected to see a head there, but couldn't find it. Where the head should be, it looked like the thing on top of their house, the thing that the dark clouds came out of. Dark clouds were coming out of this. Her brow wrinkled. "Soke," she said.

"Smoke, Lenitchka."

"Soke." The thing was green like the trees in places, and shiny like the sun in others. She could understand its two long arms, jutting out in a funny way. Squat legs, like it was crouching. An image flashed across her mind of her father crouching like that, growling and pretending to be a bear. It had a kind of metal face under the smokestacks, no eyes, lots of dark slits.

Yakov watched as the armored mask pivoted to look directly at Lena. "What's it doing?" he asked.

Emma came around the side of Marcel, hands in the pockets of her coat. "Huh. He doesn't usually look at people. I don't know." She shrugged, then pointed up the path. "Come on Marcel, we're going this way." Emma took a step to go, and was nearly knocked off her feet by a flying metal fist.

Dodging backward just in time, everything seemed to slow as she watched Marcel's arm sweep up in an arc in front of her. The rivets on the back of his right hand twinkled in the sun as they passed inches in front of her eyes. His chromed fingers uncurled. She knew time was moving at its normal speed again because sound came back with a _woosh_ of air from Marcel's arms shooting upward.

Emma's face didn't know whether to display terror or rage, so it chose an inspired mixture. Her skin went white, her mouth fixed itself into a grimace on its way to a snarl, and her eyebrows formed arches of surprise. She processed rapidly. Someone was controlling her steamjack. Someone dared. Then, the thought: _oh, shit_. A warcaster. Here. Why? A warcaster meant danger. Death.

Emma looked to Yakov. "We have to—" she stopped. Her mouth hung open in a dumbfounded O. The child had her arms straight up in the air, copying Marcel's gesture. Emma looked at Marcel, at the child, at Yakov. He looked alarmed, body half turned, ready to run.

_No_, Emma thought. _No way_. The girl clapped her hands over her head. Because of how far apart his shoulder joints were, and how his arms were socketed in, Marcel wasn't able to fully follow the command. His arms moved on their ball joints as far up as they could, grinding as they stopped short. His hands couldn't touch to clap.

Emma backed away. The girl moved her arms straight out in front of her, and began clapping that way.

_WHONG! WHONG! WHONG! _echoed out as Marcel's hundred pound hands crashed into each other, exactly synchronous with the child's.

"Yakov, grab your daughter!" screamed Emma. She wasn't proud of the fear that leaked into her tone. "Grab her arms!"

Yakov looked at her, confused, incredulous. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. Emma knew steamjacks better than he did. He picked Lena off his shoulders and cradled her in his left arm, her legs pinned against his body. In his right hand he held Lena's palms together. His voice wavered when he spoke. "Ay, Lenitchka, we're going to pray to Menoth." He was trying to make it a game. His heart pounded.

Lena didn't want anything to do with it, and didn't like being restrained. She wanted to play. So she screamed. Smoke shot straight up out of Marcel's stacks, keening with pressure.

"You need to go, NOW!" Emma yelled at Yakov. "Turn and run home. We don't know the extent of her ability."  
"What do you mean?" he said. "What is happening?" Lena thrashed in his arms. Marcel took two steps toward Yakov.

"She can't control it, she's too young." said Emma. "Six tons of steel are being driven by a child! Yakov, your daughter has the warcaster talent. GO!" Then it was Yakov's turn for the white face, the dumbfounded O. He ran.

As he flew up the path, Lena wriggled an arm free, and reached back over his shoulder, looking at Marcel. Emma had disappeared into the trees, so the steamjack stood alone, its right arm reaching out for Lena.

* * *

Marcel. Now that she was away from Ohk, away from the Greylords, the _Druzhina—_that name was the one that floated to the top of her mind. Lena missed and loved her parents and grandparents. She was also smart enough to know that she would likely never see them again, and so she tried to focus on something in her old life that she might actually be able to return to. If Lena could get to Vilkhan first, it would be okay. It would be fine. They had to know where she would go, but she was on the move, and one person moved faster than a hunting party. She fled across the tundra.

/\

Dawn. Outside the gates of the city, Andrei Malakov emerged. He had a small retinue of warjacks and a contingent of Winterguard soldiers. His sinewy frame was patched with patriotic red: plated armor that provided mobility. Malakov twirled his officer's sword as he conferred with Count Obelzov. The fat count and the slight young officer were black statues framed by the pink of the morning.

"This is your test, Andrei," said Obelzov, his inordinately long mustaches moving with his mouth. "The High Kommand is watching. If you want them to trust you in the field, you have to find her." He omitted the obvious fact of what must be done with her once found. "I don't care if she was your classmate. She is an enemy of Khador."

Malakov nodded. "I know this peasant bitch." He grinned, clean teeth flashing. "She has some talent, but she is not intelligent. She won't get far enough to sell any secrets of the Empire. I'll be back before summer, with her head in a bag." Obelzov rolled his eyes. No class, this one.

"Remember, these are my men, and I give you leave to take them as a favor to your father. Do not misuse them."

"Yes, yes, I thank you. Now it's beyond time we left. I'll send a report soon." Malakov stalked away, inclining his head to the Winterguard, signaling them to follow. Flanked by his hulking 'jacks, he walked into the sun, the shining walls of the White City receding into the distance.


End file.
